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Juno Reactor

This summer sees JUNO REACTOR, the genre-straddling, trail-blazing extravaganza started in the early 90s by Ben Watkins, appearing at the world’s major festivals, celebrating 20 years as one of most idiosyncratic but globally popular names to come out of the electronic dance music revolution.

During this time, while Juno Reactor’s music has sound tracked anything from Goa sunrise gatherings to Hollywood blockbusters, the epic live extravaganza has toured the world, instilling a mixture of rapt awe and emotional catharsis as its cross-cultural celebration matches Cecil B. DeMille vision with symphonic apocalypse.

The live dates, including Hungary’s Ozora festival and headlining Russia’s Kabana event, will straddle the seven Juno Reactor albums, also September’s new release, continuing the spectacular tradition of senses-blasting projections drenching vibrant ranks of musicians, singers, percussionists and dancers. This year’s lineup sees Watkins joined by new vocalists Hamsika Ilyer (Bollywood’s new rising star) and Maggie Hikri from Israel plus stage-commanding singer-toaster Ghetto Priest. Legendary Banshees-Creatures drummer Budgie will helm the beats [joined in Ozora by four Taiko drummers from Tokyo’s Gocoo].

Ben Watkins started Juno Reactor in 1990; initially as an experimental art project, but releasing its first single ’Laughing Gas’ in 1993, followed by its ‘Transmissions’ debut album, now cited as Trance’s first artist album. Watkins then commenced the journey which has seen six further epoch-making albums, including ‘Beyond The Infinite‘, ’Bible Of Dreams’ and 2008‘s ‘Gods & Monsters’. In 2003, Watkins collaborated with composer Don Davis on the Score for blockbuster movie sequels ‘The Matrix Reloaded’ and ‘The Matrix Revolutions’, including ‘Navras’, since heard all over the world on other films, commercials and TV programmes.